


untouchable

by Kendarrr



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:29:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendarrr/pseuds/Kendarrr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>i couldn’t touch you without ruining you,</i><br/><i>so i didn’t touch you at all<a href="http://exceptindreams.livejournal.com/214571.html">.</a></i> </p><p>three times Carmilla stops herself from touching Laura too much and the one time she indulges herself (and by extension, Laura). unsurprisingly not angsty.</p><p>x-posted from my tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	untouchable

The sight of Laura’s bare wrist gives Carmilla pause on her way to their shared mini-fridge. The length of the girl’s right arm dangles off the edge of her bed. Blankets bunch around her legs, kicked off during the small girl’s sleep. Carmilla places her blood-streaked glass on the headboard of her bed. She rifles (minimally) through Laura’s stuff and finds the batwing charm used as a bookmark for a Virginia Woolf novel.

 

Carmilla replaces the charm with one from her own stack of bookmarks. Carefully lowering herself to sit on the bed beside Laura’s pillow, she lifts the girl’s arm to her lap. Tips of her cold fingers graze the inside of Laura’s wrist just to feel the thrum of life coursing through her. A rhythm Carmilla enjoys.

 

She slips the bracelet around Laura’s wrist. About to tie it, Laura stirs and Carmilla tenses. Waits until hazel eyes open while her mind runs wild with possible synonyms for beautiful. She bites the inside of her lip. Resists the urge to speak until Laura does.

 

“What’re you doin’?” Laura’s voice is thick with sleep. It’s five in the morning, and Carmilla knows she was cramming for an exam hours before.

 

“I didn’t mean to wake you, sweetheart.” Carmilla murmurs. Laura’s arm is stretched out across Carmilla’s thighs, clad in ripped black jeans. The younger girl does not take her arm back. Instead, she curls it around Carmilla’s midsection and tugs her closer.  “Care to tell me why you keep removing your bracelet?”

 

 Laura turns her head so her face is not pressed against Carmilla’s hip. “I felt like I have no need for it since I’m not really in harm’s way right now. I’m in bed, sleeping.”

 

Carmilla’s brow rises. “All the more reason for you to wear it, darling. It keeps the bad dreams away, remember?” Her palm itches. She flexes her fingers. She digs her blunt nails into the slope of her knees. Nowadays, touching Laura is all she can think about. More so than her next meal. More than defeating her own mother. More than Ell.

 

Though to be fair, Carmilla hadn’t thought of her until she told Laura about her past, dark as it was. She feels like she should, but she doesn’t. Because now, Laura occupies her mind, among other things.

 

“But if I wear it, you’ll feel off,” Laura sits up on her bed, her back against the wall. Clad in a tank top and a pair of plaid pajama pants, Carmilla finds her delightful to look at. Her eyelids droop a little and she yawns. “And I don’t want you to feel weird when you’re touching me.” She says, smiling as she pulls the string that holds the batwing bracelet around her wrist. It unravels. It falls on her lap and she tosses it aside. She takes Carmilla’s hand. No radiation leaks out of Laura other than her warmth, but Carmilla feels off anyway. She feels like her undead heart is vibrating with phantom life. It threatens to spill out of her chest and out of her throat, in words she wants to speak.

 

“There is also a band of blood-hungry vampires working under my mother who are possibly out to harm you,” Carmilla argues. In her boots, her toes curl. Laura’s hand snakes up her shirt to stroke the indent of her spine and its curve. “I’d rather sacrifice the privilege of touching you than have anything harm you.”

 

“Don’t be silly. I highly doubt that Will and his friends, if there are any—”

 

“Oh, there’s a lot.”

 

“…would just barge in here.” Laura shoots Carmilla a look. “Anyway, I keep the bracelet on hand at all times!”

 

“You were using it as a bookmark. I hardly call that ‘on hand’.” Carmilla scoffs. She nudges Laura aside and she lies down on the narrow bed, still warm from Laura’s body heat. Laura curls against Carmilla like a punctuation, a short intake of breath.

 

If only Carmilla breathed.

 

She stretches out her arm and Laura uses it as a headrest. The human girl throws her legs over Carmilla’s, her arm around her waist. “I only wanted to put your bracelet on your wrist and get another glass of blood. How did I end up here?” She asks, her chin resting atop Laura’s head.

 

Carmilla feels the trembling of Laura’s shoulders when she giggles and it fills her with incandescent delight. The kind of enjoyment that shines bright like the dawn of a full moon, fireworks illuminating the sky. Why compare kisses to colourful explosives beneath your eyelids when you can hold your love in your arms, feel her breathe and laugh and speak, and you experience the same luminescent glow in the pit of your belly? A feeling Carmilla was sure she has forgotten, yet here she is. Reliving emotions that she once thought would leave jagged glass scarring her throat.

 

But instead, she is pure glow, pure flame. Darkness overshadowed by Laura’s light.

 

Her hand caresses the slope of Laura’s shoulder and she cranes her neck to brush her mouth against the top of the girl’s head. The rise and fall of Laura’s body steadies. Carmilla admires her features. Eyes closed, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Slowly, she extracts herself from Laura’s embrace, as much as she loathes to do it. She plucks the batwing charm that’s been tossed to the foot of the bed and ties it around Laura’s wrist. Carmilla sweeps her hair off her forehead. She presses a soft kiss there despite the nausea that sweeps through her, caused by the charm.

 

Carmilla staggers backward and pulls the blanket to cover Laura’s body. “Sleep tight, buttercup.” She whispers, taking her glass again. The soy milk carton is full from her trip earlier. Filling up her glass, she drinks it in steady gulps, a trickle of blood escaping the corner of her mouth.

 

She rinses her glass and puts it on the tray by the sink. Collapsing on her bed, Carmilla heaves a sigh. She doesn’t exactly know what she is to Laura. The girl rarely hesitates when it comes to touching her recently. Like a habit, newly formed. And the mess of emotions that come with it comes from a place Carmilla thought long dead.

 

She pulls the blankets up to her stomach and turns to lie on her side to be more receptive to the rhythms of Laura’s body. Eyes closed, Laura’s yellow pillow in her arms, Carmilla falls asleep to this beat, the reminder that she is among the living, among the one who makes her feel as if she is a part of this realm. 

 

* * *

 

The thick musk of the book smells tickle Carmilla’s nose once she finishes her smoke teleportation right in the middle of SilasU’s library. She stands between the stacks of epistemology and causation. The wooden floor of the library is grimy with something—who knows what—and Carmilla sighs. All she needs is to find a different book to read, other than her book on Kierkegaard and the one on French poetry.

 

She glances at the window where the blood red sun is sinking behind the clouds. The tips of her fingers graze the spines of the texts. Hardbound books have always been her favourites. Picking up an Upanishad interpretation, Carmilla leafs through it despite the warning bells clanging, piercing the silence of the library.

 

The library becomes a dark pit with books and index cards coming to life, sure. Carmilla has known that for a long time. It’s a defense measure against nosy students who are looking to get into the sub-basement where the dirty, dark secrets of the earth and the universe are kept. Carmilla knows, because she helped put it there.

 

The skittering echoes louder and Carmilla barely bats an eyelash. A few stacks to the left, the books on gas mechanics emit some sweet-smelling gas that’s meant to knock someone out when inhaled. Carmilla huffs. Three books in her arm, she covers up her mouth and nose and makes her way to the self-checkout desk.

 

It takes her five minutes before the black vines from the botany stacks start appearing, crawling towards her. “Really?” Carmilla complains, smashing her fist into the glass of the emergency case. Axe in hand, she cuts through the plants that are beginning to curl around the library double doors.

 

Each hacked up piece of the plant withers as soon as it is cut off from the main stalk, and Carmilla swings the heavy axe like she’s brandishing a stick. The stone steps that lead to the sub-basement begin to surface. The grating noise of stone against wood is loud, but Carmilla has no time to complain. She stuffs her books into her duffel bag and gets ready to disintegrate into a plume of black smoke.

 

“Carmilla!” Someone yells through the brambles of the ever growing plants. The vampire groans and picks up the axe one again. “Carmilla, are you in here?”

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Carmilla demands, hacking up the plants and the vines that blocks her view of Laura who’s wearing a camo outfit and a gas mask. “I told you where I was going so you won’t worry!”

 

Laura ignores her and she tosses a gas mask to Carmilla, who puts it on without a word. “It was getting late,” explains the smaller girl. She refuels the flamethrower and aims it toward the trees whose roots are crawling towards them. Carmilla hefts up her axe and drives it into the plants as more and more crawl out of the plants stack.

 

“So you think it’s smart to follow me into the library after dark, huh?” Carmilla grabs Laura’s wrist. The batwing charm is not on her person, and before Carmilla can say anything else, the glass breaks and dark matter from the celestial mechanics stack creeps toward their direction, sucking everything in its way. “God damn it!” She wastes no time. She takes Laura’s hand. She squeezes it before she barrels through the double doors, her axe ripping apart anything that stands in her way.

 

Carmilla does not stop until she’s out on the quad with Laura panting heavily beside her. She drops the axe and the head of it sinks into the soft soil. Carmilla unlatches Laura’s gas mask so she can breathe better.

 

“What were you thinking?” Carmilla hisses, pushing Laura to sit in a nearby park bench. She towers over the human girl. Her hair sticks to her forehead, slick with sweat. “You could’ve gotten hurt! I’m a vampire,” Carmilla points to herself. “I can take care of myself. Didn’t you know that? I’ve survived for hundreds of years without help from anyone, especially not from—”

 

Her scathing words snag against her throat. Laura, her bright hazel eyes, her quivering lip. Carmilla clenches her fist. “I was just worried you wouldn’t come back.” Laura’s voice is rough and her words stick to her throat. Carmilla sits on the bench beside her. She takes her hand as if Laura is delicate when she knows full well that this human girl is far from frail.

 

But she’s a centuries old creature. She is stronger than most.

 

Laura grips Carmilla’s hand and her head falls to rest on the vampire’s shoulder. For a brief second, Carmilla tenses. Not this again, she thinks. This closeness—Laura’s closeness—makes her head spin. She hates it, but she does not. “I just needed to make sure you’re okay. What if The Dean got to you? There’s no way I’d know, Carm.”

 

Carmilla rests her cheek against Laura’s head and slides her arm over her shoulders. She knows she should probably bring Laura back inside, but she is comfortable in this cold park bench, red fog surrounding them, icy drops of rain slicing her skin.

 

“But I’m fine, buttercup.” Carmilla murmurs. “Honestly. Nothing is going to happen to me.” _Not without you there_ , she thinks.

 

Sitting up, Laura sighs and before she can shiver, Carmilla’s leather jacket is off and is draped over her shoulder. “Thanks.”

 

Carmilla’s cheek twitches and she smiles. She stands, her boots sinking a few inches into the ground. “Let’s go before the earth swallows us whole.”

 

In their dorm room, Carmilla shucks off her boots and pushes Laura into the bathroom for a shower. There’s something about showering after being rained on that prevents humans from getting a cold, and Carmilla would hate it if Laura gets a cold. She’ll never hear the end of the sniffling and the complaints.

 

Of course that doesn’t mean that Carmilla won’t be the one bringing Laura Perry’s chicken soup or Lafontaine’s ibuprofen pills. Prevention is key and all that.

 

“Carmilla? I forgot my towel!” Laura calls out from the shower. At this, Carmilla tenses. She spots the girl’s fluffy yellow towel draped across the back of her computer chair and she takes it. She hesitates in front of the bathroom, the door open by just a crack. The sound of water dripping down the tiles, the heady aroma of Laura’s shampoo. Laura naked behind that door. Carmilla’s jaw flexes and she steps in. Pointedly looking away from the curtain, she drapes Laura’s towel on the hook by the door and is out of the bathroom as fast as she can manage.

 

Carmilla barely hears Laura’s ‘thank you’ when she falls face first into her bed. Without picking up her head, she reaches for her bag and takes out one of the books she borrowed from her trip to the library. Laura steps out of the shower, and Carmilla ignores her. But the steam is rich on Laura’s skin, droplets of water beading at the curve of her shoulder. The room is filled with her scent. Carmilla’s head spins.

 

Who is this human girl for whom Carmilla’s senses seem to cease function? Who is she for whom her pulse seems to flutter with life?

 

Focusing on the words on the page is difficult enough with Carmilla’s head riddled with images of Laura being assaulted by the library entities, but with Laura just clad in a tank top and small shorts for sleeping, Carmilla is uneasy.

 

She likes to think she’s better than the ruffians from Zeta Omega Mu, but when her undead body is acting the way it is, maybe she’s not so different. Undead yet aroused. If only the masters of Science could witness her now.

 

Carmilla sits up once Laura finishes towel-drying her hair. She’s on her computer, reading another fanfiction (this time, Harry/Draco). Legs crossed, Carmilla checks if Laura’s camera is off before she speaks.

 

“Did you have any idea how worried I was?” Carmilla asks, her voice an attempt to be tough and firm, but her words spill out of her mouth like a plea. “How terrified I felt when I heard you call my name in the library earlier?”

 

Laura spins so fast that her chair creaks. “ _You’re_ worried? You told me you were going to the library five hours ago. You even said you’d be back before the sun sets, but you weren’t!”

 

“I told you. I can take care of myself.” Carmilla grits out.

 

The human girl heaves a sigh and draws her chair closer to Carmilla until their knees bumped together. “Fine. I didn’t do it for you. I did it because  _I_ was scared. I’ve had firsthand experience about the scary things in the library, you know that.” Laura’s fists clench on top of her lap, and all Carmilla wants is to reach for her hand, unfurl her fingers, kiss each digit one by one. “I know you don’t think you need me, but…” She trails off. “I don’t want another roommate but you.”

 

When Laura looks up and meets Carmilla’s eyes, her stomach lurches. She wants to touch Laura. She wants that small hand in hers, and she knows she can reach out and take it. The batwing charm is nowhere to be seen. But she fights against the urge. She will not be the one to reach out.

 

So instead, offers Laura a half-smile, who offers a full one in return.

 

* * *

 

The walls are pounding and so is Carmilla’s head when the music fills the entire frat house with its dull bass and electronic swells and riffs. The cup in her hand is half-empty with cheap liquor. Around her, co-eds dance and sway to the rhythm of the night.

 

A Zeta party has never been her idea of a good time, but since Laura made friends with Kirsch (with Will nowhere to be found), the human girl feels obligated to go once in a while. By extension, Carmilla does too.

 

There’s just no way in hell she’s going to let Laura go into a frat house—brimming with men and fungi—all by herself. Besides, Laura asked her to come. And it’s not like she’s special. The floor dons are going with them too.

 

Currently, Carmilla is on an over-stuffed couch. A frat boy and a girl making out beside her, making delighted whimpering noises that makes both of them sound like tortured, dying chipmunks. Carmilla crushes her now empty cup of vodka and orange juice in her hand. Resists the urge to chuck it at the heads of the two children. Instead, she reads.

 

It’s not necessarily a vampire perk, this ability of hers to ignore her surroundings, no matter how loud it was. It’s a Carmilla one, born out of her apathy and general disdain for loud, booming noises. But as much as she can ignore everything around her, she can never seem to stop herself from paying rapt attention to Laura, currently downing shots with the ginger twins.

 

She allows herself a small smile when watching Laura without her knowledge. The way she throws her head back to down her drink. The flex of her throat. The scrunched up face she makes as the burn of liquor makes her warm. And the sight of it makes  _Carmilla_  warm.

 

Which has to be impossible. Impossibility. Such a recurring theme in Carmilla’s musings recently. What is it with this human girl and her ability to shatter all impossibilities Carmilla has ever known?

 

“Hey, Carmilla! Come do shots with us!” The invite comes from across the room, from a tipsy Laura sandwiched between the floor dons. She has another set of tequila shots laid out before her, and Carmilla heaves a sigh and saunters over to where Laura stands.

 

“Haven’t you had enough, cutie?” She asks, watching Laura disentangle herself from Lafontaine to lean against her roommate instead. “You look like you’re ready to fall asleep.”

 

“I may or may not have had more than I thought I could handle,” the girl admits, her face pressed against Carmilla’s arm. “But isn’t this what college is all about?”

 

“What, increasing your tolerance for weirdness and alcohol? I don’t think so.” Perry scoffs, and Carmilla shoots her a look. “I trust you can take care of Laura. Just remember to make her drink lots of water, okay?”

 

Carmilla nods and the ginger twins go off somewhere, probably to look for more girls to take care of. A gallant effort. Carmilla applauds them in her mind.

 

“Can vampires even get drunk?” Laura asks. She presses the shot glass into Carmilla’s hand, along with the salt shaker. “You should be, since your liver isn’t working anymore and your body can’t really process the alcohol, right?”

 

“How are you talking so much right now?” Carmilla chuckles and guides Laura over to the empty kitchen. “You have to remember that I’m also undead. Human biology no longer applies to me.”

 

She sweeps the cups and other junk into the sink and lifts Laura up on the counter, the smaller girl making a small noise in the back of her throat. Carmilla pats Laura’s thigh and does the shot that was given to her. The salt gone along with the tequila, Carmilla searches for a lime.

 

And she finds one lodged between Laura’s lips. Her eyes, hazel in their challenge, their ‘I dare you to’s.

 

Carmilla raises a brow. “I don’t think you want that, sweetheart.” She says quietly, plucking the lime in Laura’s mouth. She bites down on the fruit and sucks hard, similar to the motions of feeding. The disappointed look Laura shoots her makes her feel bad.

 

Almost.

 

Tapping Laura’s cheek with a cool palm, Carmilla smiles. “You’re drunk,” she states, plain as day. “I’m positive that if you’re not remotely tipsy, you would never offer me a lime like that.”

 

Laura snorts and leans into Carmilla’s hand, still on her cheek. Her warm skin is like dipping a hand in lava, but it doesn’t burn her palm at all. All it really burns are her insides and Carmilla is already on fire. Vampires are weak to fire.

 

“That’s not true. I’m what you’d call an honest drunk.” Laura looks proud despite her drooping eyelids.

 

“That’s not usually something humans are proud to be,” Carmilla stands between Laura’s legs and the girl shifts forward. Her legs close around Carmilla’s waist, her head tucked against the vampire’s shoulder and neck. “Honesty hurts, darling.”

 

“Better to be hurt with the truth than be soothed with lies,” Laura mumbles. “I forgot who said that.”

 

“Seriously, how are you speaking right now?” Carmilla laughs. “I’m taking you home, okay?”

 

The tenderness in her voice is not lost on Laura, who looks at her with eyes brighter than the sun, yet hazed by the alcohol. “You know, omitting things is a form of lying too.”

 

Carmilla says nothing and turns her back towards Laura. Automatically, since they’ve done this a hundred times before, Laura’s arms loop around Carmilla’s neck and the vampire grips the backs of her knees. She lifts Laura like she weighs as much as her pillow does.

 

Outside the frat house, the air is cold. Blue mist swirls around the Robespierre building, and it trails to the direction of their dorms. The willow trees that surround the quad uprooted themselves and are taking a walk, most of them in pairs. Carmilla walks fast, but she tries not to jostle Laura too much.

 

Against her back, she feels the steady rise and fall of Laura’s chest. Carmilla climbs the flight of stairs. She bumps her foot against the door and it opens with a crash. Laura stirs, but does not say anything. Carmilla eases her down on her bed. Crouching down on the floor to remove Laura’s shoes and socks. She makes quick work of removing Laura’s blouse and her pants as well, and then she covers up the girl’s body with the blanket.

 

Carmilla tucks Laura in her bed while she stalks around the room for a glass of water which she brings it to Laura, now half-awake.

 

“Drink this,” Carmilla murmurs, helping Laura sit up. She brings the glass to the girl’s mouth and watches as Laura drains the water from it. “That’s a good girl.”

 

“No, stay…” Laura groans when Carmilla stands up to put the glass in the sink. “You took off my clothes; might as well sleep with me, right?” She asks with a sleepy grin. Laura reaches out and gives Carmilla’s hand a tug towards her.

 

Carmilla’s throat feels parched at the thought of sharing a bed with this girl. She wants to—oh god, how she wants to—but she can’t. Because maybe, it’s the monster inside of her that wants this, wants Laura for itself.

 

And she will not be the one to bring Laura to her destruction, will not be the one whose touch will ruin the girl. Not if Carmilla can help it.

 

“I can’t,” she says, and her words are loaded with the weight of her sorrow. Carmilla sweeps her fingers across Laura’s brow to brush her hair away from her eyes. “As much I would love to.”

 

“Then why don’t you?” Laura looks more curious than hurt, and that in itself, is a relief. “I’m asking, Carmilla. I want you to. You’re not doing something I don’t want.”

 

Carmilla sighs and collapses on her own bed. “The fear inside me is darker than you can imagine. If anything happens to you because of me, do you really think I would be able to forgive myself?”

 

She lifts her head and sees Laura looking back at her. “You have nothing to be scared of, you know.” She says, soft and sweet. An ascent to the light waiting to happen. “I’ve been with you through a lot of weird crap. I’ve seen  _you_. I’ll be a fool to leave you now.”

 

Carmilla smiles. How did she get to be so lucky? Laura has to be the most understanding human she has ever met, and to be in her space is a privilege. She opens her mouth to speak, but when she sees Laura’s eyelids drooping with the weight of weariness and alcohol, Carmilla pulls the blankets higher up her body. She closes the lights and she heads out to feed, the thought of Laura vibrant in her brain.

 

* * *

 

When Carmilla finally admits to herself that there is no turning back for her feelings for Laura, it is right in the middle of a raging war against the Zetas in the middle of SilasU’s quad, while armed with paintball guns with slime balls as ammo (courtesy of the Alchemy Club). Carmilla and Laura are on the same team along with Lafontaine and a few others from their dorm building.

 

Danny, the referee for the current round, stands in the middle of the field. Carmilla cocks her rifle and glances over at Laura, her hair in a ponytail and war paint smeared across her cheeks. “Remember. No super speed,” she whispers with a smile.

 

“You’re no fun,” Carmilla complains. She loops a slime ball bullet belt across her body and picks up another rifle. “I’m going for Kirsch.”

 

“Don’t aim for his head too much. I think it’s taking a toll on him.”

 

Carmilla flashes Laura a devilish grin. “But that’s the fun of it, sweetheart.” She pauses. “Don’t you dare get hit once, you hear me? I don’t want our room smelling like peach gunk.”

 

Danny aims at the clouds and she fires the starting pistol. War screams from the Zetas echo and Carmilla calmly walks up to the center. She aims her guns, firing rapid shots at Kirsch and his Zeta brothers. Every shot aimed towards her misses, and she smirks at the mixed look of awe and frustration in their eyes.

 

“You’re not playing fair!” Laura shouts beside her as she ducks behind a barrel. Carmilla scoffs and lets the boys take a shot at her. The slime explodes across her belly and her thigh. The ripe stench of peaches covering her.

 

“Better?” Carmilla demands, ducking behind the barrel where Laura is blindly firing at a Zeta. “God, if I smell like peaches for more than a day, I’m blaming you.”

 

Laura looks at her, her eyes filled the brightness of sunshine. “Oh, lighten up. You’re wearing Betty’s old clothes anyway.” It’s true. Carmilla is clad in a blue shirt and shorts that ride up high on her thighs. “Okay, I need you to cover me. I’m going in for the flag.”

 

“Got it,” Carmilla says before she can even gauge the situation. “Wait, there’s like a wall of them around it!”

 

“That’s why I said cover me!” Laura shouts, and she’s gone. Carmilla watches her sprint across the yard. While the rest of their team distracts the Zeta front liners, Laura manages to reach the halfway line without getting hit. Carmilla curses softly and runs after Laura, aiming at those who threaten this human girl from winning this inane game.

 

Off the distance, Carmilla sees Kirsch and a few of his cronies running towards Laura. She reloads her rifle and in a flash, she stands a few meters in front of Laura, and she’s assaulting the Zetas with a steady stream of the slime. “Go, go, go!” Carmilla yells at Laura. “You’re almost there!”

 

The smile on Laura’s face when she retrieves the flag a mere ten seconds before the Zetas grabbed theirs will forever be ingrained in Carmilla’s mind. She runs to the girl despite the angry parting shots the Zetas aim at her. Sure, slime is now dripping down her body and a lot of it is clinging to her hair, but with Laura pulling her into a tight hug of victory, it feels as if Carmilla won too.

 

* * *

 

Post-game cleanup. The overcast clouds create mottled patterns of light across the grass, threatening rain. Carmilla huffs again as she scrapes off the sludge that makes her hair all sticky. “I’m never going to let you talk me into something like this ever,” Carmilla bares her teeth at Laura who laughs so loud that it earns them stares. “Seriously! I’ll never be clean again.”

 

“You’re so dramatic,” Laura rolls her eyes and takes the rifles used during the skirmish to store in the box before their feet. “You leave more sludge in our bathroom compared to this.”

 

Carmilla ignores her, arms crossed across her chest while the cleanup crew gather the rifles into boxes. Laura picks up two, and Carmilla six. Together they bring it to the shed of Summer Society supplies, because of course, only they would have paintball rifles for their crazy events.

 

Once the guns are stored inside the shed, and the door of it is locked, Laura pockets the key. “Per and Laf told me there are going to be cookies in the common room,” she says, and her excitement makes Carmilla chuckle.

 

“Hey,” Carmilla says, when Laura turns toward the dorm. She reaches for her wrist, her pulse strong against Carmilla’s palm.

 

Like a bolt from the blue, a sudden incursion of inescapable feeling. Laura’s body is against Carmilla’s body, and her lips is on her lips. The vampire’s cold hand slides up the human girl’s arm to curl against the back of her neck.

 

Behind that shed, with the autumn rain oddly warm on her skin, Carmilla kisses Laura, and Laura kisses her back. No taste of hesitation. Just peach slime and Laura’s lip gloss.

 

When Laura pulls away, her tongue darts out to lick her lower lip. The sight of her pink tongue thrills Carmilla, and it brings to the surface all of her pent-up desires. Her fear of touching Laura, of being the one to break her, takes the backseat  _for once_.

 

Carmilla pins Laura against the shed, her arms on either side of her head bracing her in place. The curl of Laura’s smile drags against the line of Carmilla’s jaw. Her fingers curl against Carmilla’s shirt, and she is giggling.

 

“I didn’t know seeing me covered in peach slime does it for you,” Laura has that smug grin on her face, her shoulders trembling with laughter. “You’re into some strange stuff, Carmilla.”

 

The vampire rolls her eyes and takes Laura’s hand. “Whatever. I bet you saw it coming.” She murmurs more to herself than to Laura who keeps pace with her long strides.

 

“I totally did. I was waiting for you to snap, actually.” Carmilla shoots Laura a glare at her admittance.

 

Finally in the privacy of their dorm room, Laura sits on the edge of her bed while Carmilla sits on hers. “Have you been plotting again?”

 

“Not to trap you or anything—because it’s not a trap if you’re willing to be in it, right?” Laura grins and kicks her feet, heels bumping the frame of her bed. “I’m tired of beating around the bush. I do enjoy our newfound closeness,” she does a waving thing with her hands, “but I was hoping we can be, I don’t know, more?”

 

She looks at Carmilla with hope in her eyes and this three-hundred-and-some year old vampire cannot help but feel giddy. A thrill that runs deeper, one that she feels down to the base of her spine.

 

“Come here,” Carmilla murmurs, pulling Laura to her lap. “I must admit that I’ve been trying to control myself these past weeks.” She brushes Laura’s hair behind her shoulder. Fingertips graze the bumps of her collarbones, and she feels Laura shiver. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed. You being touchier, always holding on to me.” Carmilla smirks. “Was that your magnanimous attempt at seduction, cupcake?”

 

Laura shrugs, her smile brighter than the sun. “Maybe?”

 

Laughing, Carmilla palms the swell of Laura’s thighs. Her bare skin feels warm to the touch, and the vampire slips her fingers up the human girl’s shirt. She touches the line of Laura’s hip, the area of skin where the garter of her shorts begin. “I’d say you should work on your subtlety but I like you this way.”

 

“You’re damn right!” Laura wraps her arms around Carmilla’s neck. She leans in for a kiss which Carmilla readily returns. She moves back until she is against the wall and Laura is greedy with her kisses. Her mouth glides along the sharp line of Carmilla’s jaw. Her hands, insistent to touch more of the vampire, pulls at her sticky shirt.

 

Once removed, Laura leans back and Carmilla laughs a little at the look in her eyes. She makes Laura lie on the bed and she hovers over her, clad only in her lacy black bra and her shorts. “Look all you like, darling, but the one who gets to touch is me.”

 

Carmilla tears through Laura’s clothes and her mouth is on her breast, her teeth grazing the bud until it is stiff and Laura is arching into her mouth. Carmilla’s eyes never leave Laura’s features, her brow knitting with pleasure, lips parted softly as she breathes hard.

 

She drags her thumb against Laura’s bottom lip, her mouth wandering down the flatness of her belly.

 

“ _Oh,_ ” Laura whines, her hips rising, yearning for Carmilla’s touch. The vampire, with a devilish grin, lifts Laura’s legs up to hook over her shoulder. With Laura spread out before her, Carmilla smooths her hands along Laura’s skin.

 

Her teeth bared, Carmilla gives Laura’s thigh playful bite. “Do you really want this, Laura?” She murmurs, her lips mere inches away from the girl’s dripping core. Against her cheek, she feels the muscles of Laura’s thigh tense.

 

“You can’t be  _seriously_  asking me that when you’re between my legs,” she complains, curling Carmilla’s hair around her fingers. “But the answer is yes, I’m sure.”

 

Carmilla takes pride in her capacity to control herself. She refuses to be the fiend her mother claims her to be. How can she be a monster when her undead heart swells impossibly large because of Laura, Laura, and nothing but Laura? Her mouth parts, her tongue drags along the cleft of Laura’s pussy for the first taste.

 

Laura groans, hips rising again. Carmilla delves her tongue deeper, her nose bumping against her slick clit. There is no wasted motion in her movements. Every curl of her tongue, every drag of her nose against Laura’s sensitive bundle of nerves, and her palms on the human girl’s breasts serve one purpose, and it is to make Laura come.

 

“I can’t…” Laura moans. Her back rises off the bed, her toes curling against Carmilla’s back. “God, Carmilla—fuck!”

 

The expletive makes the vampire grin, and she licks Laura’s walls. Her taste, Carmilla finds, arouses her all on its own. But with the sight of Laura’s body, curved and stretched, yearning for more of her, and the sounds that spill out of her mouth, douses her with the flame of longing.

 

Laura’s walls tense around Carmilla’s tongue and this delicious tightness makes Carmilla moan, muffled against Laura’s center. She closes her lips around Laura’s clit, the girl’s thighs closing around her head. Good thing vampires need not breathe, even though Carmilla still pretends to do so. She strokes Laura’s nerves, and her orgasm comes as a broken gasp of Carmilla’s name.

 

She trembles like a leaf, and Carmilla continues to lick her folds, but gently, to let her ride out the torrents of her pleasure. She licks her lips clean. Never let it be said that Carmilla is a messy eater.

 

Crawling up to Laura’s heaving body, sweat forming on her forehead and along the valley of her breasts, Carmilla kisses the top of her heart. She feels the rapid pulse against her lips, and she lingers to hear the rush of blood, the sound alone euphoric in her ears.

 

“Hey,” Laura smiles at her, a lazy curl of her lips, fingers stroking the curve of Carmilla’s spine. “So, that was amazing.”

 

“Was there ever any doubt?” Carmilla sneers, though her eyes are shimmering, bright with visions of Laura in the height of sexual gratification. She ignores the urgency of her own arousal in favour of kissing Laura while stroking the girl’s belly.

 

“Not at all,” Laura grins and locks her fingers with Carmilla’s. “I was just thinking how you have all these centuries of experience and now I get to reap the rewards of your expertise, so to speak.” She rolls to her side and faces Carmilla, her mouth warm against the vampire’s cheek.

 

Carmilla laughs and pulls Laura closer to her body. “You’re such a dork.” She kisses Laura’s brow and closes her eyes, only to open them when she feels Laura’s hand gliding between her thighs.

 

“You may have centuries of experience, but I’m a fast learner.” Laura says, casual as if her hand is not in Carmilla’s shorts, her fingers working her with dexterity she barely expects from Laura. Carmilla sighs against Laura’s neck and gives her jaw a nibble.

 

She just wishes she figured it out earlier that there was no reason for her to fear breaking Laura with her own hands, because this girl is so strong (and  _so_  talented), and when it comes to her, maybe, Carmilla is more human than a monster.


End file.
